Let Windows Annotate Your Files a Bunch at a Time

Add keywords or descriptions via the Properties dialog box.

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Last December's column on annotating files struck a chord with readers who want to make their files easier to locate. Unfortunately, though, the more files you have, the longer it takes to annotate them one by one. To the rescue is reader Richard Arey of Marysville, Washington, who points to the Properties dialog box for a solution.

Start by opening Windows Explorer and selecting the files to which you want to assign common keywords or descriptions. Right-click the selection and choose Properties (or press <Alt>-<Enter>). Click the Summary tab. If all fields appear to be disabled (grayed out and not editable), you're viewing the simple summary; click the Advanced >> button to expand your file-annotation options. (If your Summary tab already has a '<< Simple' button, it means that you already have the options in view.)

You'll see icons labeled Title or Comments for most file types; JPEG files will have a Keywords icon as well. For some file types, you have to scroll a bit to see all the available fields. To add annotations to any of these categories, click in the empty area to the right of the category name. A text box will appear with a blinking cursor, ready for you to type (see FIGURE 1

Figure 1: Annotate several files at once by adding terms to the Comments field.

). If no such box appears, click farther to the right. Now type your keywords or descriptions, and then click OK.

MP3 files are a special case: Their ID3 tags show up in the Summary tab, and many media players and other applications will help you retag your MP3s and organize them based on these tags. Yahoo Music Engine, for example, is great at automatically retagging files.

If the area to the right of a category reads '(multiple values)', this signals that at least one file in your selection already has an annotation. You can still edit that category, but doing so will overwrite all of the existing annotations. Think twice before editing a category of files that you've already spent a lot of time annotating.

Track Down Resource Hogs

Whenever Windows 2000 and XP run out of system resources, they start to misbehave. Symptoms include the inability to open new windows, and the failure of menus to display. To find the resource hogs, right-click the taskbar and choose Task Manager. Click the Processes tab to see the programs and services that Windows is running. To get more information on each process, choose View, Select Columns to customize the Processes display (see FIGURE 2

Figure 2: Customize Task Manager to help you spot your resource-hogging apps.

). Check the items you think will help you track down the process gobblers. For example, you'll certainly want to keep Memory Usage checked (it should be selected by default). Another useful item is Handle Count. Handles are values Windows assigns to identify various resources that applications use; the Handle Count gives you a sense of how many resources each process is using. Once you've made your category selections, click OK. Monitor the processes that are using the most memory, handles, and such hardware resources as CPU usage. However, you'll rarely if ever need to end an SVCHOST, Services, or other Windows process, most of which the OS needs to run properly. For more information, click here to read about and download the free Process Explorer utility.